Talbot bands and temporal processing of optical signals

J. Jahns, A.W. Lohmann, M. Bohling

Abstract

Talbot’s bands can be observed in one of the diffraction orders of a grating spectrometer with a partially phase-shifted input beam. This experiment has long been considered as a curiosity. Here, we look at it from a new perspective: we discuss the Talbot band experiment as a combination of two kinds of dispersion, refractive and diffractive. This may be of interest for various tasks of temporal optical signal processing such as dispersion management and the shaping of ps/fs-pulses. For this purpose, we demonstrate the use of micromachined optical elements to alter the performance of the classical Talbot band setup. A theoretical description and experimental results are presented.